Kingdom Come, Chapter 7
KINGDOM COME, CHAPTER SEVEN By then, Lindsey was on the floor, her face buried into her hands, sobbing her eyes out. I just stared at her, almost in tears at the sad love story. I thought about the promise Lindsey had made to Tai Lung. Right about then I felt sympathetic for the both of them. They had loved each other, and now Lindsey had to kill Po and rule over the valley for the promise to be kept. It was an evil promise, but hey, if you made a promise to your lover right before they died, no matter what that promise was, wouldn’t you want to fulfill that promise so that they could rest in peace? “Lindsey,” I said softly. “And you’re trying to keep me from doing it!” Lindsey screamed through sobs, not acknowledging that I had spoken. “You’re trying to keep me from killing the panda! I promised Tai-chan I would! I promised him! You’re in love yourself! You love that boy, Andrew! You crave his love! You beg and plead with the gods and goddesses for his love, and yet you want a promise made to a lover to be broken! You want a lover’s promise to be broken, yet you dare to love yourself!” “Lindsey, I-” I started to say, but before I could finish, I screamed and backed away from the iron bars. A ring of fire had appeared around Lindsey as she screamed through her sobs. The harder she cried, the bigger the fire became. Soon, she was inside a dome made of flames. Suddenly, the flames started to rise, and became a floating ball of fire, with Lindsey inside it. Then, as soon as it had appeared, the ball of flames vanished and Lindsey slowly fell to the ground. She was on her knees, her face covered. She looked up and into my eyes. Tears were still streaming down her face, but she wasn’t making any noises. I gasped when I saw it- the tears coming from her eyes weren’t tears. It was lava, coming from the sides of her eyes and slowly streaming down to her chin, dripping onto the floor. It looked like she was crying blood. Except the blood was a shade of orange and red. Was it normal for all witches to cry something from their element? “You’re an embarrassment to all lovers,” Lindsey said softly. “How dare you love somebody. Ai must be ashamed of you.” “Ai wanted me to come here in the first place,” I replied. “If she wanted you to come here, she must have been wanting to get rid of you,” Lindsey said, standing up. “I am the most powerful element witch in the universe. You have no chance against me.” My eyes widened in disbelief. My heart knew that Ai would never do something as horrible as that to me. But what if Lindsey was right? “I will be seeing you later, Kelsi,” Lindsey said, and she started to exit the room. “Ai would never do that to me!” I called after her. Lindsey turned around to face me. “Don’t be so sure, Dragon Sister Kelsi,” Lindsey said, and then exited the room. I sat on the floor and thought deeply about what she had said. But Ai is the goddess of love. She is supposed to give me power, as well as protect all lovers. She must have sent me here to protect Po. But was Lindsey right? I knew she was lying, but a small part of me questioned that. I put my ear to the ground and sighed. I couldn’t waste time sitting here. I had to find Po and get out of here. I had to leave here and stop Lindsey Chor Gom. I listened to see if there was any sign of Po’s breathing, his voice, his heartbeat. “Po,” I muttered. I repeated his named a lot louder, so if he was anywhere close, he would be able to at least hear me a bit. I knew that he was alive, he had sung with me just now. “PO!” I screamed. “Kelsi?” I heard a familiar voice ask. A flame of hope lit inside my heart. “Kelsi, is that you?” “Yes, Po, yes, it’s me, Kelsi!” I exclaimed. “Where are you?” “In some kind of prison cell in Lindsey’s base in the volcano,” I heard Po reply. His voice sounded like he was right there next to me. “Where are you?” “Same as you,” I replied. “I’m just in a different room. Tell me everything that happened. From the very beginning of when you were kidnapped.” “Well,” the Dragon Warrior began. “I went to bed and woke up in here. Lindsey came and told me that she had kidnapped me and was planning to kill me because I defeated Tai Lung, her boyfriend.” A tense feeling went through me when I heard Po say the word ‘boyfriend’. The reason was that I had once wished that Po would one day be my boyfriend, and I still kind of do. When I ever hear him mention something about love, I get very tense and imagine the two of us in love together forever. But it would never happen, I always reminded myself, and “And then she left, and after what seemed like awhile, I heard you singing,” Po continued. “I wondered if it was the real you, and then I realized that only you would sing that song. Then I realized that you wanted me to sing with you so that you could find out if I was alive or not. So I sang. Then everything stopped. A few minutes later I heard Lindsey screaming something about love.” Again, that tense feeling. “And then I heard your voice. Now I’m talking to you. How’d you get here?” “I had a dream that you were kidnapped,” I explained. “And when you were gone in the morning, I went looking for you.” “You did?” “How else would I have gotten here?” I asked. There was a moment’s pause. “We need to get out of here,” I said, breaking the silence. “Exactly what I was going to say,” Po replied. “But how?” “Hey, we’ve gotten out of situations like these before,” I said. “When Kahn was kidnapped the girls and I went to rescue him and wiped the evilness out of Seraphiniaph. And remember the time you guys defeated Mr. Nepolotano? And the time the girls and I defeated Chauntella Mirar?” “But have we ever been in a situation where the both of us are kidnapped by a woman who can control fire and wants revenge on me for defeating Tai Lung?” Po asked. I sighed. “No,” I replied. He was right. How were we going to get out of here? I looked around my prison cell, hoping to find some sort of thing that would help me escape. I noticed that the bars were apart enough so that I could stick my hand and wrist through. I also saw something on the other side of the bars- a keyhole. Perfect! Now I just needed something to stick into that keyhole to pick the lock. But how would I do that? I wasn’t known for being able to pick locks. Lance was. He could pick the lock to my bedroom with only a straw from a juice pouch. I couldn’t even pick the biggest lock with a bobby pin. I stuck my hand in my hair. Yep, no bobby pins. I checked the pockets of my jeans. Nothing sharp. Actually, nothing at all. I shook my head. “Po, I see a lock on the bars of my cell,” I explained. “I have nothing sharp to pick the lock with, though.” “Come on, Kelsi, there has to be something that you can pick the lock with,” Po said. I sighed. “I’ll try to find something,” I replied. All hope seemed lost. We were going to die here. Not even Ai could save us. Ai… A light bulb went off in my head. That was it! I took my necklace off of my neck and put it in my hand with the bottom facing outward. I stuck my hand with the necklace in it through the bars and carefully and slowly stuck the sharp end of the necklace into the lock. I twisted it a few times, praying that it would work. It did. The bars of my cell slid open and I was free. I jumped for joy, then reminding myself that if Lindsey found out I was free, I’d be dead. “Po, I’m out,” I said softly so that Po could hear me. “Don’t say or do anything, I’ll be right there.” I exited my cell and put my necklace back on, kissing the red gem in the middle of it before putting it around my neck. “Thank you, Ai,” I muttered. I spotted a spiral staircase towards the edge of the room and ran towards it. I sprinted down quietly until I reached the first room I came to. It was identical to the one I had been in. “Kelsi! Over here!” I looked to the right of the room and saw Po sitting on the floor of his cell. I ran to it and stuck the end of my necklace in the keyhole. The bars swung open and Po and I hugged for a second. When we let go, I looked him in the eye. “Let’s get out of here!” I exclaimed. We ran towards the spiral staircase and were about to get onto it when the sound of six words slowed us down and made us turn around. “Where do you think you’re going?” I looked at her. “And just where did you come from, Lindsey?” I shot back. “I have my ways of getting around,” said Lindsey. She had come out of an opened cell and was walking towards us. “Now, where was I? Oh yes. You two-” she pointed her finger at us, “are not escaping here.” “Oh yes we are, Lindsey!” Po said. Lindsey laughed. “You can try, Dragon Warrior, you can try, but you cannot and will not ever be able to defeat me.” Lindsey stuck out her hand. All of a sudden, Po flew back and hit the wall. He fell down in pain from the hit and rubbed the back of his head. Suddenly, chains fell down on his body, trapping him. I yelled in fright and jumped back as Lindsey began laughing. “You see?” Lindsey laughed, as I stared at her in anger. “You can never win.” “Well maybe I can,” I challenged. “If you want revenge on Po for defeating your precious little kitty cat, then you’re going to have to get through me first!” Lindsey gasped. “You did not!” she exclaimed. “How dare you make fun of my lover! And to think that you love someone yourself!” I charged at her and punched her in the face. It left a pink, ugly scar there. “Nice, Dragon Sister, nice,” Lindsey said, smiling, rubbing the scar with her left knuckles. She then came at me. I backed away to dodge the hit, but instead of a hit, she waved her hand over me and set the ends of my hair on fire. I screamed and came at her again, kicking. She snapped her fingers and my skirt set on fire. I yelled and kept fighting, but her fire power was too much for me. Soon, my hair and clothes were all on fire. I continued screaming, so sure that I would die from being engulfed in flames. Lindsey smiled at her victory and stepped back. “Oh, Kelsi Rider… You dare to love… how dare you love!” Lindsey screamed, and all of a sudden, a powerful current of lava shot out of her hands and engulfed me, covering me completely. It burned and stung terribly, feeling like a million fires on my body. The pain was worse than anything I had experienced in my life. I heard Po screaming, “NO!”, and I felt my skin burning off. I knew that when someone went into lava, their skin would be burned off, their intestines would be overthrown by the heat, and their skeleton would be burned as well. They would be nothing but ash drifting around in a pool of lava. But before I could experience my skin coming off, just seconds after the lava engulfed my body, the lava stung my throat and I couldn’t scream. The lava went into my eyes and I couldn’t see. The lava went into my head and my brain was burned away. I was dead. ---- Let me tell you how it feels to be dead. You feel yourself getting lifted up out of your body, and you see nothing but a bright, bright light. You hear children singing and bells ringing. And you think, ‘I’m home. This is where I want to be.’ That’s what I felt for the first few seconds. Then, after what felt like only a minute, the singing faded away and the bells stopped ringing. ‘More,’ I thought. ‘I want more. I want the singing and bells to keep going, I want more of it.’ But there was no more. After that, there was silence for around half a minute or so. I stay there in confusion, wondering what this was and what was going on. Then, blue, sparkly mist appeared around me, and I couldn’t see anything but that. Then, some of the mist cleared and in its place a gigantic lime green bubble appeared. And then I saw who was standing in the bubble, her eyes closed, arms open, hair and dress still, for there was no wind. It was Ai, goddess of love. I wanted to cry out to her, but couldn’t, for I found that I had lost the ability to speak somehow. After a few seconds of her silence, her lips opened very slightly and she began to sing, as music started to play softly in the background: Flower, gleam and grow Let your power shine Make the clock reverse Bring back what once was mine Heal what has been hurt Change the fates designed Save what has been lost Bring back what once was mine What once was mine…